Crystal Cathedral out of money

GARDEN GROVE The Crystal Cathedral is working on a “cash flow only” basis with enough money to cover expenses through June, but attendance and donations are increasing and leaders are looking toward a new beginning for the troubled ministry, leaders say.

The second chapter of the bankrupt church will likely include a move to St. Callistus Catholic Church, CEO and President John Charles told hundreds of congregants gathered for a meeting Wednesday night.

“(We can) move somewhere that for the first year is rent free. Can you beat that?” Charles said.

Currently, the ministry is paying $115,000 per month for rent to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, which bought the campus in a court-ordered sale in February.

The move would likely come next year as cathedral leaders need to give the Catholic Diocese six months notice.

“I’m not making an exit plan. I’m making a move plan,” Charles said. One that congregants can make “with our heads held high,” he added.

Finances are so tight, Charles told the audience, that before any debt is paid, “I look at the checkbook to make sure it can be covered.”

He projects that he will run out of cash at the end of June.

But the ministry is not accruing any new debt, is current on its rent and bills and does not plan to take out any bank loans, he said. For now, he said, there is no budget. Instead, he said he’s working on a three-month basis.

While church leaders painted a bleak financial picture, they also spoke optimistically about the future.

With a new format in services, increased attendance, an up-tick in donations and other changes in the works, “the sky is the limit,” Charles told the membership.

Pastor Bobby Schuller, the grandson of founder Robert H. Schuller, attended the meeting. He has been named as the guest teaching pastor who will give the Sunday morning sermon to be rebroadcast across the world in the Hour of Power television program.

In the past month, the younger Schuller has given the Sunday early morning service twice before running to his own nearby Tree of Life church to share a message. The cathedral’s finances, he said, reflect “how Americans are living right now.”

Schuller called Wednesday’s presentation honest.

“It was one of the most transparent, positive meetings I’ve been to at a church,” he said.

While many welcomed the younger Schuller’s return to the church with their applause Wednesday, the relationship between the ministry and the Schuller family has been a rocky one in the recent past. The founding members separated from the ministry last month and are embroiled in litigation over intellectual property rights.

All the congregants’ questions were submitted prior to the meeting. Some asked about the elder Schullers and whether they had the keys to the campus.

“We’re not a Gestapo. I’m not going to escort them out,” Charles said. “They built this campus. They deserve to walk here.”

Earlier, Charles paid tribute to Robert H. Schuller: “We’re all here because of him.”

Attendance and offerings have increased since March, leaders said, after Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman abruptly announced she was leaving the cathedral and taking congregants to another location. About 100 congregants followed her first to a movie theater and then a hotel. The remainder of the congregation saw a return of traditional style of sermons and music to the Crystal Cathedral. And many congregants who had left the church returned for the traditional services.

Charles said he’s banking on the increased attendance to boost revenue.

The congregation’s contributions, however, provide the smallest slice of the ministry’s financial pie: 8 percent, according to Charles. The Hour of Power, reduced to a half hour now in some markets, provides 68 percent of the revenue, and the cathedral’s school brings in another 14 percent, Charles told congregants.

In his presentation Wednesday, Charles included some charts with specific details, but the numbers on the large screen were tiny and impossible to read – even to some audience members sitting toward the front of the large auditorium they call the Arboretum. Charles declined to share a copy of the documents with the Register and said that congregants are welcome to meet with him and see the specifics.

Many congregants said they were pleased with the presentation. Some members had been clamoring for more transparency from the cathedral, where until Wednesday even the names of its board members were kept confidential.

“It was absolutely fantastic,” said long-time member Shirley Fink, of Yorba Linda. “The board gave all the answers that everyone was concerned about. We have a new direction.”

“We’re cutting ‘impossible’ out of the dictionary and really embracing our faith,” said Linda DeAmbrosio, of Orange. “We believe God can turn the Titanic around.”

Not everyone was pleased with the outcome.

“They’re making all the decisions and we have no say,” said member Bob Canfield, who wants a return of the cathedral’s consistory, or ruling body of the congregation.

The Rev. Robert A. Schuller, the founder’s son, was not at the meeting but has visited the cathedral twice since his sister left on March 11.

“They have a potential of making something happen there,” he said in an interview Thursday. “But they need more than a guest teaching pastor. They need somebody who is really going to give some leadership there.”

Robert A. Schuller was forced from his post as senior pastor in 2008 when his job of giving the Sunday morning sermon was taken away by family members. His sister, Schuller Coleman, took over and introduced a new format many long-time time members disliked.

Now the head of two television companies, Robert A. Schuller said he has not been invited to preach at the Cathedral.

“I can understand the political situation,” he said. “Apparently there are people who are really burned by my sisters and they are afraid of having somebody of my strength coming in and giving leadership.”

But Schuller said he supports his son 100 percent, saying: “I don’t think you can find anybody who will do a better job than my son guest preaching.”

In other developments, church leaders said they are working on a new model of selecting pastors, elders and members. Currently, membership in the church requires completing a class.